S te r hate control



Jan. 8, 1957 R. LOWE Re. 24,263

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Baa y La we BY A T TORNEYS.

United States Patent 24,263 APPARATUS FOR PROPORTIONING MATERIALS RudyLowe, Cranston, R. I., assignor to Proportioneers, Inc., a corporationof Rhode Island Original No. 2,658,644, dated November 10, 1953, SerialNo. 790,918, December 10, 1947. Application for reissue April 13, 1956,Serial No. 578,158

6 Claims. (Cl. 222-52) Matter enclosed in heavy brackets appears in theoriginal patent but forms no part of this reissue specification; matterprinted in italics indicates the additions made by reissue.

This invention relates to an apparatus for proportioning materials whereany desired number of different solid and fluid materials may be desiredto be mixed together.

A unit for feeding a material has heretofore been constructed andutilized for causing the material to be delivered into some othermaterial to be mixed therewith in accordance with a predetermineddefinite ratio,

which ratio may be varied as required. Some of such units are designedto operate upon fluids, while other units are designed to operate uponsolids.

Some proposal has been made to combine a plurality of liquids based uponthe quantity of liquid fiow of the final output of an apparatus, butsuch an apparatus has not been commercially successful,

One of the objects of this invention is to provide a plurality ofdifferent stations from each of which one or more materials is or arefed into a common receiving means or mixing chamber, which stations maybe individually adjustable to provide the desired ratio of that fedmaterial to the final result, and to at the same time provide a mastercontrol for the final output, which single master control will bevariable and yet at all stages of variation will maintain the ratiowhich has been set at each of the stations.

Another object of this invention is to provide an apparatus in whichfluids and solids may be combined.

Another object of this invention is to provide a combination of unitsfor feeding materials of several different characteristics, while allmay be controlled through a common master station.

Another object of this invention is to provide :an arrangement by whichthe apparatus will be shut off, should one of the fed materials beexhausted.

With these and other objects in view, the invention consists of certainnovel features of construction as will be more fully described andparticularly pointed out in the appended claims.

In the accompanying drawings, the figure is a diagrammatic view,schematically illustrating the apparatus and showing an arrangement ofdifferent stations with flow lines or wiring means by which thedifferent parts of the stations are connected together, and the wholeconnected to be controlled by the master controller.

In proceeding with this invention, I provide a master station whichcomprises a constant speed drive with an adjustment between the constantspeed drive and an electric motor whereby this master electric motor maybe varied in its speed. I then provide a plurality of different stationsand in each station there is a primary driver which comprises anelectric motor which is driven in synchronism with the master electricmotor. Thus this primary driver of each station will maintain the samespeed as the master motor and will vary with the variation in the speedof the master motor. Also I provide at each station a component ratiocontroller which in effect is a speed reducing device, so that theeffective speed from the primary driver will be reduced prior to beingim- Re. 24,263 Reissued Jan. 8, 1957,

pressed upon the station which it is to actuate. For instance, ifstation No. 1 is to supply 15 percent of the total of the finishedproduct, the speed reducer for each one hundred revolutions put in willcause to be delivered but fifteen revolutions, so that in efliect theratio delivered from the speed reducer will be the percent of the totalwhich the station is to deliver. With this basic arrangement it is thenonly necessary to use the particular type of station which will besthandle the particular type of material which is to be delivered by thatstation and provide some hopper into which each of the materials fromthe various stations may be delivered to be reacted or mixed. Thus,theentire output may be controlled by varying thespeed' of the master upto the volume of the apparatus. Safety devices are provided so thatshould one of the materials be exhausted, this will stop the operationof the entire system or apparatus.

With reference to the drawings, I have provided a plurality of stations,there being here shown four in number designated by the numerals 1, 2,3, and 4 down the right-hand side of the drawing. A master stationcomprises a constant drive unit 10 which provides a constant speed for ashaft 11 driven therefrom. This shaft 11 enters a gear box 12 from whichthere emerges a shaft 13 and by adjustment of gears in this gear boxthrough a knob 14, the speed of the shaft 13 may be controlled or variedas desired. This shaft 13 drives the master motor 15, which motor servesto drive through an electrical synchronous connection, the servomotorsat each of the various stations. Thus there is provided servo unit 1,servo unit 2, servo unit 3, and servo unit 4 at each of the fourstations, each designated for convenience 16 and shown as beingconnected together and to the master motor controller 15 by an electriccircuit indicated by a dotted line 17 so as to cause the master motor tocontrol the speed of the several other motors which are connectedthereto. Upon an increase or decrease in the speed of the master motor15 there will be a like increase or decrease in each individual motor16. Each of the servo units or motors 16 has a shaft 17 extendingtherefrom into a gear box or some sort of a ratio controller designated18, from which there emerges a shaft 19. The ratio controller 18 ismanually adjustable as by means of a hand knob 20 to vary the speed ofthe shaft 19 to bear any proportion which is desired to the speed of theshaft 17 which is driven by the motor 16. For instance, if it is desiredthat station 1 deliver 15 percent of the material to the final ratio ofproportioned material, the controller 18 will be adjusted for the shaft19 of station 1 to rotate fifteen revolutions for each one hundredrevolutions of the shaft 17. If -it is desired that there be delivered20 percent of the material,

in the final mixture at station 2, the controller 18 of station 2 willbe adjusted for the shaft 19 of station 2 to rotate twenty revolutionsfor each one hundred revolutions of the shaft 17. If it is desired thatthe material delivered by station 3 shall be 30 percent of the finalmixture, the controller 18 of station 3 will be adjusted for the shaft19 of station 3 to rotate thirty revolutions for each one hundredrevolutions of the shaft 17. And if it is desired that the materialdelivered by station 4 shall will swing about its fulcrum so as to movean end [the] portion 95 of the beam which through suitable connectionwill actuate a mechanism 96 [operable] to cause the motor 88 to [either]speed up or slow down as necessary to right the {the quantity ofmaterial discharged] discharge to {that} the quantity pro-set.

Delayed action devices may be used for the controls, so that {excessive}hunting [back and forth] in any of these mechanisms will be avoided.

Should there be a yariation in the material delivered at [any] either ofstation 1 and 2 to such a degree as to produce a movement of thedifierential beyond a pre-set [tolerances] tolerance in the differentialmechanism in either direction, then a switch may be thrown to stop theentire apparatus, [as] for instance by stopping {of} the master driveunit, so that material [in an improper proportion] cannot be deliveredto the reaction vessel in the wrong proportion. [For example, in] Instation [No.1 1 contacts 100 and 1&1 are provided at either side of theswinging arm 102, which arm is moved by a differential motion of theunit 36 so that if g ljexcessivel movement of the arm beyond pre-settolerances occurs, said arm will engage one [or the other} of saidcontacts which operate through suitable [connection] connections [tointerrupt the supply of electrical energy] to the master drive.Likewise, contacts 1G3 and 104 on either side of arm 105 in station{No.1 2 may cause the same result II; or in]. In station 3 the beamweight 65 may move the arm 186 to engage the knock-0E of switch 167 tocause the master motor to stop; or in station {No.1 4 the weight 90 mayhave its arm 108 engage knock-off switch 109 to cause the same result.Thus, should the supply at one station be exhausted, the apparatus wouldstop operation.

The apparatus contains a feature which makes it possible to[mathematically pro-test} pre-set a given blend {setup} of materialwhich would be delivered to the reaction vessel 33 without passing anymaterial. All previous [blenders] blending apparatuses were limited (a)by the fact that they depended for operation on a primary flow and (b)because of wear in the speed reducing means and the fact that the outputof these devices was not a straight line, dial settings were frequentlymisleading. In [myl the apparatus above described, [each secondarypanel} station 2 [regulated from the master speed control] is equippedwith two [reset] resettable totalizers such as 110 and 111 [of theOdometer type (similar to] providing the some kind of indication as anautomobile mileage indicatorD], one totalizer 110 [of these being] isdriven from the output shaft of the speed reducer at the input of thedifferential unit, and the other 111 Ebcing] is driven from the meteringdevice connected to the other side of the differential gear. These twototalizers always check each other, and should they fail to do so, theequipment will automatically shut down. [By depressing the propercontrol switch I am able to totalize the respective components beforeactually delivering any chemical, whether liquid or dry] Similartotalizers (not shown) may be provided for the other stations and acontrol switch may be provided to enable an operator of the apparatus tototalize the components of the blend before actually delivering anymazerz'al whether liquid or dry.

I claim:

1. An apparatus for proportioning a plurality of materials, comprising aplurality of stations for the different materials, a controller at eachstation for controlling the quantity of material fed at its station, amaster controller for all of the first said controllers and manuallyadjustable to pre-set the rate at which a particular combined quantityof materials is to be fed from said stations, said controller at eachstation being manually adjustable to pre-set the quantity of materialfed at its station at a predetermined proportion relative to the saidpredetermined combined quantity of material fed from said stations, 9.

differential mechanism at each station for controlling the quantity ofmaterial fed at its station at the predetermined setting of thecontroller of the station, each of said controllers at said stationsbeing responsive to any change in setting of the master controller andautomatically operable to control the diiferential of its station so asto maintain the said pro-set proportion of material fed at its station.

2. An apparatus as set forth in claim 1 further com prising means tostop the apparatus upon the exhausting of one of the mate-rials fed.

3. An apparatus for proportioning a plurality of materials, a pluralityof stations for the diiferent materials, means at each station forfeeding the material therefrom at a predetermined proportion, a feedcontrol means at each station to control the quantity of material fedtherefrom, a master controller rotatable mechanism having an outputshaft therefrom, said mechanism being manually adjustable to pre-set therate of speed of rotation of said shaft, 2. second controller rotatablemechanism at each station having an input shaft rotatable at the pre-setrate of rotation of said output shaft, each of said second controllersbeing responsive to any change in speed of rotation of said output shaftfor automatically maintaining the speed of rotation of each of saidinput shafts equal to the speed of rotation of said output shaft, saidsecond controllers each having an output shaft, each of said secondcontrollers being manually adjustable to initially pre-set the speed ofrotation of its said output shaft at a predetermined ratio to the speedof rotation of its input shaft and automatically operable to maintainsaid speed ratio at any change in the speed of rotation of its inputshaft, a differential at each station connected to the said output shaftof the second controller at said station and operable for controllingthe feed control means at each station and responsive to any change inthe speed of rotation of the output shaft nected thereto so as tomaintain the quantity of material fed controlled thereby at the samepredetermined proportion for any change in the setting of the mastercontroller.

4. An apparatus for proportioning a plurality of materials, a pluralityof stations for the difierent materials, each station comprising meansfor measuring the quantity of material fed at the station, a controllermanually adjustable for pro-setting the quantity of material fed at thestation, a rotatable differential having an input and output side, saidinput side thereof being operatively connected to said controller androtated thereby, and its output side connected to said measuring means,said differential being operable to increase or decrease the quantity ofmaterial fed at the station upon a difference between its input andoutput rotation, a master controller for all of said stations manuallyadjusable to pre-set the quantity of the combined feed of material atsaid stations, said controllers at said stations each being responsiveto said master controller and automatically operable to increase ordecrease the input ratios of said difierential to maintain the pre-setproportion quantity of material fed at its station.

5. An apparatus as set forth in claim 4 in which said master controllerincludes a master motor and said station controllers each include amotor synchronized to rotate with said master motor.

6. An apparatus as set forth in claim 4 in which said controllers arespeed changing devices.

References Cited in the file of this patent or the original patentUNITED STATES PATENTS 1,492,271 Snyder Apr. 29, 1924 1,766,625 GearyJune 24, 1930 1,886,575 OConnor Nov. 8, 1932 2,248,072 Fry July 8, 19412,345,524 Ziebolz Mar. 28, 1944

